If you're a Millennial or younger who's ever ventured on the Internet, you know there's a lot of hype surrounding college freshmen. Everyone thinks freshmen need advice for their first step into the adult world in the form of packing lists, to-do lists, open letters filled with advice, tips for navigating Greek life, etc.
They tell you to give it some time and you'll make tons of best friends with whom you will maintain a close, loving relationship for the rest of your life. You'll become the kind of person who color codes multiple planners, works out before your intentionally scheduled 8 a.m. classes, and finishes the next week's homework before opening Netflix. You'll have your major all planned out -- heck, you'll have your life planned out -- and you'll never doubt yourself. You'll be happy.
You wish you were us #tusilentnight
A photo posted by Peyton Nill (@peytonnill) on
So you put in the work. You buy -- and use -- a really nice, $30 planner. You try to drag yourself out of your introverted shell and make new friends. You join clubs and cabinets and choirs, and you go to chapel and wing activities and play on a nearby playground with the brother floor. You try your hardest to make your college experience the blissful, exciting life everyone told you it would be.
Despite your efforts, you find yourself laying in your bed on a Saturday afternoon, feeling aggressively lonely and discontented. You'll see the Instagram feeds and Snapchat stories of the fun your friends are having with each other -- even after they told you they were too tired or busy to hang out. You see everyone else's perfect, peaceful, tea-drinking, lettering-filled life, and you tell yourself that you're an introvert, so you don't need people, anyway.
You wear out your shoes as you walk for miles each day to see if the endorphins will pull you out of the well you're drowning in. You binge on chocolate. You go for long drives and develop a caffeine addiction from all of the lattes at really hipster coffee houses. Nothing fills the aching emptiness inside.
It's cute here and I appreciate how it makes me feel like an angsty-cool Millennial from Portland
A photo posted by Peyton Nill (@peytonnill) on
You consider switching floors, and even switching dorms. You try to think of ways to fix your situation for next year, because, honestly, you can't take another year like the one you're having.
Everyone assumes that after a few months of freshman year, everything will click into place. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way.
When everyone at home tries to make small talk by asking how your year was, you tell them "it was great" and "it's a wonderful school" and "springtime is amazing up there." You don't tell them that you're dreading going back. You don't tell them six months without sunshine nearly killed you. You smile and laugh, and you throw yourself into summer.
You pray this doesn't happen again when you graduate and follow a job to another random city. You hope you'll be OK, and that life won't always be like this. You decide next year is going to be better.
My Commitments for Sophomore Year
1. Give Grace
I commit to extend myself and the people around me grace. I acknowledge that no one has their lives together, and I will be patient with myself and others while we all try to do the best we can.
2. Build Healthy Friendships
I commit to continue to seek out new people and broaden my circle. I understand healthy relationships are founded on mutual support and commitment. I will pour into my friends, and I will look for friends who pour into me.
I will step back from unhealthy relationships. One-sided friendships only lead to pain and disappointment, and I deserve to be loved and valued, not treated like a backup plan.
I commit to supporting the women in my dorm community unconditionally, but I will not give of myself until I get pulled into the crisis. I will love others, but I will maintain appropriate boundaries for my own health.
3. Push Myself
I commit to push myself to make each day the best day it can be. I will be productive and will learn from assigned reading and essays, not thoughtlessly fly through them and check them off my list. I will set a schedule and allow myself relaxation breaks only when I have earned them.
4. Keep My Priorities Straight
I commit to keeping my actions in line with my goals. Maintaining a high GPA is important to me, as are my commitments to my work and writing, so I will put those priorities before anything that will detract from my performance.
5. Look For Heaven in the Everyday
The trick to being happy is to look for small pieces of God's goodness, or, as we learned in Foundations of Christian Belief last year, pieces of heaven. Focusing on the perfection of God's creation puts the negative parts of life into perspective.
I commit to looking for something to be thankful for each day. In the fall, I will relish the smell of the crisp air and the beautiful colors of the leaves. In the winter, I will appreciate how lovely the world looks covered in white snow and bask in a spot of sunlight. In the spring, I'll walk barefoot in the new grass.
